


Recession

by dialectica_esoterica



Series: Nocturne [2]
Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: 1960s, Banter, Beth Harmon POV, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Historical Accuracy, Jealousy, LSD, Light Angst, Period-Typical Drug Use, Possessive Behavior, Recreational Drug Use, Unresolved Sexual Tension, nightclubs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:02:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27622450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dialectica_esoterica/pseuds/dialectica_esoterica
Summary: Beth has five days left in New York. She wrangles Benny into a night out.
Relationships: Beth Harmon/Benny Watts
Series: Nocturne [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017951
Comments: 11
Kudos: 201





	Recession

It started like this: a crowded nightclub in the basement of 301 West 46th Street in Manhattan. A handful of drinks; one familiar face, dozens more that are not. An up-and-coming band that everyone else seems to know; provocative beats flowing freely from a hi-fi speaker. Models and half-celebrities and beatniks, all with names that are already forgotten – or maybe never learned at all. In one ear and out the other, and Beth is _buzzing._

Or, alternatively, it started like this: five nights left in New York. An argument with – a mentor, or perhaps coach was more accurate? Several failed attempts to communicate _desire_ , a complex sense of yearning that is equally as motivated by curiosity as it is by boredom. _I’m leaving soon; aren’t you tired of this apartment?_

Most likely, though, it started like _this:_ a begrudgingly present, brooding chess champion with an affirmingly-judgmental attitude towards booze and weed. Almost five weeks in a filthy bachelor pad underground, sober as an _absolute_ judge. A philandering conversation with a well-groomed art district socialite who whispers in the ears of redheaded chess players _you look like you could use a vacation,_ before curling a tablet into the palm of said chess player’s hand.

How it started, however, is not nearly as important as how it’s _going_. Beth is no stranger to The Precipice: the space in which one pauses before surrendering control to the holiest of entities – pills, liquor, _whatever –_ and she rests there now, lingering precociously as she switches from active to passive control of her own body. It’s thrilling, and it’s been so long, and she is yearning; Beth is waiting to see an old friend and _catch up._

There’s a murmuring somewhere outside of the vicinity of her body, steadily growing in volume and pitch. It’s not entirely unpleasant, mostly because it’s not wholly unfamiliar. It’s the spaces between mutters, often accompanied by poorly concealed pointing and covert staring: _I think she plays chess; I’ve seen her face in the news; a chick, huh?_

“They’re talking about you,” whispers the artist-slash-socialite into her ear from where he sits underneath her. The guy – James, maybe? – has his left arm wrapped tightly around her waist, his right hand stroking up and down the bare skin of her crossed legs where they peek out from the slit in her skirt. Beth is almost boneless against his chest. Her fingers are combing comfortably through his wavy hair, mesmerized by the movement. Beth thinks, languidly, that she might have a thing for guys with pretty hair.

“I’m busy,” she whispers back.

From the periphery, a well-known figure: long and slender, worn leather duster, tousled blond hair. She knows his gaze as well as any other at this point, but something’s… different. Tonight, specifically. He’s watching her, distractedly, as the gaggle of models and aspiring actresses abates and expands, all the while vying for his attention. It’s like this everywhere they go.

“Tell me about playing chess,” mutters the artist, easing her into familiar territory as her vision swells and takes on a slightly different quality, prompting the beginning of what she knows will be a much larger shift. This is a new experience for her, but she’s not frightened. She’s at peace, snug again in the arms of a lover – not the man below her, but the much more comforting embrace of a substance that will _take over, take control._

“What do you want to know?” Her voice is soft, a film of cellophane clinging to a shiny new package; she’s impervious to the sound of the nightclub around her. The surrounding din is taking on the quality of a recording –it sounds just a little artificial, like it’s being played from a high-quality stereo and if she wanted to, she could just turn it off.

Pretty Art Boy shifts underneath her so that their eyes can meet – his are blue, she thinks faintly. Beth doesn’t remember ever taking note of someone’s eye color so quickly. When did she start noticing that? Beth Harmon is a big-picture type of person when she meets someone new, only using as much brainpower as necessary to determine what pre-constructed profile they fit inside most neatly.

 _He_ got a profile all of his own, when she first met him. There was no category for a smug, pretty, chess-playing pirate before him.

“It must be exciting, being better than _everyone_ at something _._ When did they discover you were a prodigy?”

“They?” Beth echoes, but her mouth has discolored and faded and she can’t really feel it, isn’t entirely sure how she’s talking. Maybe she didn’t say that out loud.

Jim or Dylan or Jonathan laughs. Okay, so he _had_ heard her.

“Your parents, I would assume. Or maybe a teacher?”

“I’m an orphan,” Beth feels herself responding. She has the most peculiar sensation – her limbs are Alice-in-Wonderlanding, feeling both too big and too small and also like they’re somehow in motion all at the same time.

If her statement makes Art Boy uncomfortable – like it does most other people – Beth doesn’t notice, too wrapped up in watching her hands twist inside his hair. It’s _pulsing_ now, writhing in her fingers like so many fluorescent threads, and Beth is transfixed.

His hair shifts in her hands, and she takes a moment just to savor the pleasant visual of… blond curls, swirling, twisting. It’s warming and friendly and vibrant; the most natural thing in the world.

Her companion clears his throat and attempts a change of tact. “It’s cool how you and your boyfriend have an open relationship,” he says, using his head to nod in the direction of –

Blond curls.

_Maybe it started like this: Beth isn’t sober. Benny isn’t here._

“Feeling ok, darlin’? This isn’t your first time, is it?”

The sensation of this man’s hair in her hands becomes unpleasant within a split second. It has the same artificial quality as the canned noise of the nightclub, and she wants to get off his lap but she’s not quite sure how. She doesn’t want to let him fuck her anymore; she feels violated at the mere thought of this unknowable, unname-able man trying to pleasure her, and it’s worse to imagine the other way around. Her feet are vibrating; her hands are large and porous. She squints, then closes her eyes, and is immediately caught off guard by how much _movement_ there is, even in the dark behind her eyelids.

“ _Beth_.”

Her vision returns at the sound, completely unbidden.

_Brown eyes._

“I think your, uh, chess partner is tripping, man. She hasn’t spoken in a while.”

“What did she take, asshole? What did you give her?”

Beth is _reeling._ She’s glad she hasn’t been invited to join the conversation because there’s no way she could keep up.

“Hey, calm down, man. It’s just acid; a pretty low dose. She’s a genius, right? She can handle it.”

 _Ah._ That would be her – the genius!

Beth knows in this moment that it’s her turn to prove something. It’s a sixth sense instilled by so many years of silent chess matches, honing her instincts to pay attention and only absorb the most relevant information – and know when it’s time to play.

“M’ fine. See?” Beth punctuates her words by sweeping lightly to her feet – she thinks – and turning to face both men, distinguishable only now by color of eyes – brown and blue. Their expressions are bigger than the space allowed by their faces, disappointment and frustration made larger than life. “I’ll be back,” she manages to get out, before she’s pivoting and careening in the opposite direction.

“Beth. Beth! _Fuck.”_

She’s swerving, teetering around the various groups of clubbers clustered together like a drunken racecar driver. Beth serpentines, no destination in mind, just content to _move._ Maybe she wants to dance? This is a nightclub, after all, and she hasn’t danced yet.

She turns on the spot, recognizing the song – it’s from a memory that features Alma, and on the insides of her closed eyelids the image of her mother plays like a television program – slightly unstable on her feet from a few too many drinks, but still swaying elegantly and humming along to the tune.

 _When I think of all the times_ _I tried so hard to leave her,  
She will turn to me and start to cry.  
And she promises the earth to me, and I believe her;  
After all this time I don't know why.  
_

Beth feels… snug, inside her skin, outside her body, as she wraps her arms around herself and fulcrums in tight circles, taking advantage of her lack of executive function and instead just enjoys this moment with nothing but the taste of a Gibson in her mouth _._ No pesky thoughts to get in the way, just Beth and the vivid memory of her mother to keep her company. It’s like watching a reflection, she thinks dreamily – when Beth turns, so too does her mother. When she smiles – just to herself – she sees Alma beaming at her intensely, so full of pride. And sorrow.

“ _Beth.”_

It’s very unclear who is speaking – the memory of her mother, or maybe it’s coming from outside her head? The noise is too far distorted; the radio static too loud to hear the narration underneath.

“ _Beth_. Time to go, don’t you think?”

Ah. _Brown eyes._

Her mother had brown eyes. Both of them, in fact, so it makes sense that she does too. Big and buggy and distorted, she fell into the pool of big brown eyes with big black pupils nineteen years ago and has been clawing her way out ever since.

 _“Christ,_ Beth. What did you get yourself into?”

Currently, it’s going like this: _he_ is here, and he is staring at her, and she is staring at him, and the path of their gazes has created an infinite feedback loop; a paradox that says _you can’t stay with him; you can’t be alone_ and it’s collapsing inwards onto itself like a [Mobius strip.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B6bius_strip#:~:text=The%20M%C3%B6bius%20strip%20is%20the,200%E2%80%93250%20AD.)

But Beth’s not a physicist, for god’s sake: she’s a chess player, she’s a _genius_ , she’s lonely, and she’s not here to find Schrödinger’s fucking cat – she came to a nightclub to do what people do at nightclubs, so she’s grabbing his hands and putting them on her body and whispering _dance with me._

The thing that’s very new about this experience is the lack of permanence. Every moment that passes splits into tertiary timelines, spilling out around her in technicolor and it’s quite difficult to tell which is the most honest, the most true. Benny’s shocked hesitation at her request fragments into a multitude of realities, but it doesn’t matter because he’s here and he’s touching her in all of them.

“Why do you do to this yourself, Beth?”

It’s accusatory, sure, but the tone of his voice implies something else, too. Benny sounds… melancholy, more than anything else, but he’s close – so very close, and it’s hard to tell which Benny is speaking.

So Beth tells him the truth: she is two sides of the same coin, she is a rounding error, an oxymoron – she is creation and destruction all at the same time. It’s here, swaddled in the warmth of Benny’s body and the thick heat of the nightclub, that Beth breathes life into her most primordial reasoning. She can see it all so much more clearly now, the difference between two and four dimensions:

_“I take as much as I give.”_

She’s said it out loud, and it’s been an epoch living with this half-understanding, and Beth feels… clearer. Satisfied, somehow, like she got what she came for.

“Let’s get you some air, hm?”

Benny’s grasping her hand and pulling her along, and Beth is again grateful for the opportunity to _let go_ , to let someone or something else take control for a little while so she can lounge in the passenger’s seat. It feels like she’s walking through a tunnel of bodies and noises and smells pressing down on her, and she half-notices the pretty boy who invited her to trip watching from the same seat as before. There’s an abstraction to his gaze, something that reminds her vaguely of lovers past, and she Beth finds she doesn’t particularly like it.

She’s startled – maybe interrupted is more accurate – by a touch to the small of her back, steering her. She knows this touch, these hands; Beth has let a handful of people handle her in this way before, but none so often as this particular pair of hands.

Beth likes these hands.

“I think that guy was hoping to have sex with you,” Benny says somewhere in the vicinity of her right ear. She’s still high as a fucking kite, but she knows that tone of voice – it’s the same tone he used to congratulate her when she found an error in Ruben Fine. He’s… not jealous, or envious, exactly. More _covetous_. Yearning.

“I know,” is all she can think to say.

Benny guides her outside, and after a few blinks, Beth can feel the intensity of the visuals lessening, aided by the brisk night air. She has the strong feeling that she’s watching herself in third person; the further back she steps, the more clear the picture becomes.

Benny’s flicking open his Zippo to light the cigarette already perched between his lips. The spark is _beautiful_ – she watches it dance in a short burst that lasts much longer on her retinas. Benny takes a long drag, then exhales, and Beth watches intently – mesmerized by the dissipation of the smoke in the air above their heads. There’s a pause, and then Benny is offering her the same lit cigarette. She declines.

“D’you know, I’ve never tried psychoactive drugs? Never seen the appeal. Chess players, we’re all about control, right? Just seems like it would be... unpleasant.”

He’s watching her, and she’s watching him.

“You’re awfully quiet tonight, Beth.”

“You would be too, if you could see what I’m seeing.”

Benny chuckles. He takes another drag. 

“So. Feel like you got the New York _nightlife_ experience?”

He’s watching her. She’s too high to play their usual game. She decides to try, anyways.

“Not sure. Does everyone _always_ drop acid when they go out in New York?’

Oh, that was actually pretty good! She can tell by the way Benny exhales forcefully through his nose, causing a pretty significant coughing fit when he inhales too quickly and chokes on the cigarette smoke. Beth gives him a few cursory pats on the back.

“So. Do you come here often?”

She didn’t mean it to come out sounding like a pickup line, but it does, and he waits for her to hear it before they exchange a smile.

“Often enough. BB King played a few months ago; that was pretty neat.”

Beth nods accordingly while Benny finishes his smoke and stubs it out on the side of the building, next to where he’s leaning.

“Do you… always have as many, uh, interested parties, when you come here?”

Benny squints at her, unamusedly.

“Really, Harmon? After the antics you pulled with the Allen Ginsberg knockoff?”

Proof that she’s inebriated: Beth walked right into that one. _God, that was dumb._ She busies herself watching the cars pass; it’s quite lovely to see the brake lights streak by, leaving smears of red in their wake. It reminds her of toddlers fingerpainting.

“Can you just… honestly, tell me what you want? I don’t know how to… I don’t know what you want from me, Beth.”

Benny always speaks to others with a slant in his posture: he stands at a forty-five-degree angle, making his gaze partially unattainable – unless you have his attention, which is what makes him so alluring to many. Now, though, he’s turned to face Beth head-on, and she has his full notice. It’s like having floodlights shone directly into one’s eyes, and Beth honest-to-god flinches because she’s on acid and his stare is way too bright.

_He’s watching her, and she watches him._

She closes her eyes.

“Benny.”

A huff of breath.

“Yes, Beth?”

A pause, while Beth watches the nondescript, swirling fractals in the dark.

“Let’s go play chess.”

**Author's Note:**

> The nightclub that they visit was a real place - it's called The Scene, and it operated in Manhattan until 1970. Not only did BB King actually perform there, so too did Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Fleetwood Mac, and many others. It's rumored to have closed due to a dispute with the New York mafia. 
> 
> The song that Beth dances to is called Girl, by the Beatles (Rubber Soul, 1965). I really wanted to lean into some of the pop culture elements of the sixties, and it was a blast to write about. 
> 
> Also, like every other self-respecting millennial from Oregon, I've experimented with similar substances as the one Beth tries. I know that everyone has a different experience, so I was trying to aim for a "middle-of-the-road" trip, rather than really good or really bad. Trying to verbalize the really abstract sensations brought on by acid was a real challenge!
> 
> Let me know your thoughts, and what you'd like to see next in this series.


End file.
